Golf cart batterys

[sweetridehd]

This spring I'm upgrading to 6 volt golf cart battery's.
My question is , do I need to upgrade the charging system of the camper ?
The rv is a 2013 Palomino B-800.
Any input ?

[BFL13]

Watts are for light bulbs and solar panels. Amps are for everything else 🙂 (except in Metric, where everything might as well be in kilopascals since it is all foreign gibberish anyway.)

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I entered the time element because of capacity constraints. Less significant with generation. V/A instantaneous, yes of course. Bending arms to try and get folks used to what's watts what for?

BFL13, is my big objective.

If AMP HOURS was acceptable, utilities would use amp hour meters on our homes instead of kWh meters.

[RWDIII]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Heh heh heh,

KILOWATT HOURS. Series, parallel, stacked, flipped, with cream and sugar, kWh do not mislead.

You are correct, you can also use the term Volt-amps!!:S

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Heh heh heh,

KILOWATT HOURS. Series, parallel, stacked, flipped, with cream and sugar, kWh do not mislead.

[wa8yxm]

red31 wrote:
440 ah @ 6v or 220 ah @ 12v, what is false, what error is minor?

Just the way your are thinking about it..
What you did: You added the amp hours for the two batteries together, then divided by two.

But that means you basically said (1+1)/2=1

Why do that work
Each battery is 220 at six volt when OUTSIDE the MH.
When installed, in series, it becomes ONE 220 AH 12 volt battery.

Way less math.

[BurbMan]

JimM68 wrote:

3 tons wrote:
I have two 6v GC's and are long lasting with plenty of reserve...One thing that has yet to be mentioned is that when you connect two 6v's 'in series' (to now produce one large 12v battery), understand that when the voltage doubles (now to 12v) the total amp/hr capacity is thereby cut in half, thus two 220 amp/hr batts 'in series' = 220 amp/hrs total at 12v, not 440.

3 tons

I hate to jump ahead when reading a thread, but this is FALSE.
1 6volt GC2 = 6 volts @ 220 ampere hours.
2 6 volt GC2's, in series, = 12 volts at 220 ampere hours

I think 3tons threw off JimM68 with the above in red. So if one at 6v has 220aH, two in series at 12v is 220+220=440, then cut in half so you wind up at 220. Long way around the block but you wind up in the same place LOL.

[red31]

440 ah @ 6v or 220 ah @ 12v, what is false, what error is minor?

[BFL13]

Deleted. He meant "this" to be what was above not what follows

[wa8yxm]

His error was minor, his math was right. Two 220 amp hour six volt batteries in series = Two Hundred Twenty amp hours. I know why his thinking is fuzzy, and his outcome is correct. but Frankly, it's not important enough to correct.

But the fact is you are both right as to the amp hours. He just stumbled getting there.

[BFL13]

deleted

[JimM68]

As a motorhomer, it's worth mentioning that these batteries like to see some major juice in bulk charge. We have 4 GC2's. Our Magnum inverter provides 100 amps of bulk charge. The battery bank would take more.

Absorb charge takes forever, and is a tremendous waste. (on generator) I wish we had solar to handle the absorb phase. Someday.

Still, we can bulk charge 4 GCs's in 2 hours and burn 1 gallon of diesel doing it.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Wishful Thinking Dept 🙂

A 4 HP Honda Engine
A 70 ampere rated newer alternator such as an ND (Denso) from a Toyota
Belt driven with an idler pulley to maximize belt wrap

In a booondock situation a Honda would give commendable fuel to kWh efficiency. The four phase Denso alternators are small and relatively lightweight. The spring loaded idler pulley keeps optimum belt tension.

The alternator would be sucking air almost 175 degrees cooler than underhood air so cooling for continuous max charging would not be an issue.

Northertool.com is a good place to find a Honda consumer engine.

It's nice to daydream...

[JimM68]

3 tons wrote:
I have two 6v GC's and are long lasting with plenty of reserve...One thing that has yet to be mentioned is that when you connect two 6v's 'in series' (to now produce one large 12v battery), understand that when the voltage doubles (now to 12v) the total amp/hr capacity is thereby cut in half, thus two 220 amp/hr batts 'in series' = 220 amp/hrs total at 12v, not 440.

3 tons

I hate to jump ahead when reading a thread, but this is FALSE.
1 6volt GC2 = 6 volts @ 220 ampere hours.
2 6 volt GC2's, in series, = 12 volts at 220 ampere hours

[BurbMan]

Short answer there is no need to upgrade your converter/charger, but you will find it helpful when boondocking. I found with the OEM WFCO unit I didn't have enough allowable generator hours at most CGs to fully charge the batteries after a night of TV, etc, especially if furnace usage was involved. The WFCO would charge the batteries just fine if given enough time, but I was seeing that I could never get back to 100% in only a few hours of gen time each day.

First thing I did was upgrade the wire gauge between the charger and the batteries, I have about a 25' run the way the TT is laid out. They used the frame as the neg path, so I added a #4 in parallel to the existing #6 positive wire, effectively giving me a #2 wire there and back. I saw some improvement but the WFCO still wouldn't go into boost mode. Step 2 was to swap out the WFCO for a Progressive Dynamics unit and saw a measurable increase in charge rate.

The other option is to add solar so that you can trickle charge all day and not rely on a few hours of gen time to get the charging job done.

Since you boondock 98% of the time, you will likely want to do one or both to improving the charging efficiency of the system.

I got some great advice from some of the knowledgeable posters here (many have already responded on this thread).